What is Air Balancing and Why It is so important?

November 08, 2023 | 08:15 AM

The role of an architect or construction engineer is lot more than drawing the basic layout of every single element of your home’s structure like roof, windows, walls, doors, etc. Along with this, another important thing to consider is to prepare the blueprint of your home’s HVAC or air conditioning setup. This is particularly true if you prefer to use a central air conditioning system. This blueprint will highlight how the duct work will be done, the size of register that should be used, and other crucial details with respect to the Central Ac.

While things are done towards this, one important that is often overlooked in air balancing. In this post, you will get to know what air balancing it and why is it so important.

What does air balancing mean?

Technically, every room of a home contains a CFM number which is prepared by architects. The term "CFM" stands for "Cubic Feet per Minute," and it simply means how many cubic feet of air your HVAC system is able to produce each minute to keep your house at a stable temperature.

According to HVAC experts, you won’t be able to sense a difference in your home's temperature when the CFM criteria is being met. Your HVAC system tends to work more effectively if your CFM requirements are being attained. If your CFM is being reached, you home would have a comfortable, uniform temperature throughout with no "hot" or "cold" temperatures.

If the installation experts are able to size your AC unit perfectly to fulfill all CFM per room standards during the initial building of your home and the new HVAC system was put in place, you are not likely to encounter any issues with air balancing. An imbalanced air system may come up if the device is not measured perfectly. Let’s now look at several factors that contribute to an imbalanced air flow.

What cause improper air balancing?

Air balancing tends to do wonders if works perfectly. You are likely to experience any of the following symptoms if your air flow is out of balance:

• High energy costs. An HVAC system may need to work harder to compensate for any hardship while keeping the temperature consistent through various parts of your home. Due to this heavy power consumption, your monthly energy costs would surely go up.
• Spots of heat or cold. Your home's HVAC system will face issues keeping the temperature consistent in the case of imbalance air. During the winter and summer, you will sense that certain rooms are colder, and some are hotter in comparison to others.
• Improper airflow. There may be little to no air circulation in the rooms that are quite far away from your central air conditioning system or a window or split AC.

In addition, during the initial construction of your home, it's possible that a few rooms had more than one external wall near to them. For example, you can think of having a corner room with two external walls that is there on the second-floor level over the garage. Your HVAC will won’t be able to balance the air flow properly if the architecture of this space is not properly insulated in regard to all the outer walls along with the floor. In order to ensure appropriate air flow at the register, this area will also ask for ducting specifications. You will have an imbalanced air home if any or all of these things are not handled.

How can I confirm the presence of air balancing issues?

You can choose to get HVAC crew out to your home right away to perform an air balancing test. This when if you find anything in this piece so far jives with what is currently going with your HVAC system.

The air balancing expert will carry out this test by precisely measuring air flow at all registers, arrival vents, and any other location where air flow is visible. The professional expert may then start highlighting the steps that must be taken by you to get a completely balanced air system in your home given the analysis done by him. Your home’s air conditioning system is supposed to run at its optimum efficiency when the registers, exhaust fans, grill, and fresh air are in tandem. Having just one of these components out of balance means high energy costs along with an ill-functioning air conditioning system.

For better results, you can choose from the best central air conditioning brands or an AC that can be installed in place of a central AC. For example, you can choose Daikin VRV which can be chosen for both commercial and residential buildings. This way, you will not have to buy separate outdoor units to match their respective indoor units. Instead, one outdoor unit can relate to several indoor units, thereby reducing complexity, power cost, and installation cost. Daikin VRV is considered the most advanced air conditioning system in the world today and it tends to deliver unmatched value to people in the long run.